Tuesday New Release Day: Bachelder; Mendelsohn; Penkov; Yun; Dutton; McGuire

“I started keeping a journal when I was eight, but even before then I was a kid who loved making long lists of everything I could see or remember. Coconut, tricycle, jeepney, air freshener, I would write, for example, and my lists would lengthen and become even more specific as I grew to know the world around me. […] Reading and writing always seemed a part of my life and identity.” For The Rumpus, Swati Khurana interviews Janine Joseph about writing poems as teenagers, writing from experience, and what it meant for Joseph to “come out” as an undocumented immigrant.

“But artifacts cannot speak for themselves; the meaning of a museum is determined by acts of interpretation.” Year in Reading alumnus Vinson Cunningham writes on the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“Did Vladimir Nabokov’s novels anticipate trends in modern psychology?” (via Maud Newton). Well, they certainly anticipated advancements in the evolutionary theory of butterflies.

We thoroughly enjoyed the latest episode of David Naimon‘s Between the Covers podcast featuring Whiting-Award winner Tyehimba Jess. The conversation centers on Jess’s latest book, Olio, a tour de force hybrid-genre exploration of African-American performers from the period just before the American Civil War through World War I. (Previously: We recommended Jess’s Leadbelly as perfect reading for train travel.)